About LifeinBklyn

Infomation and posts about the site


March 11, 2015

Site maintenance today
December 30, 2020 3:11 PM - BoerumHillScott


Testing some stuff and messing up images
December 20, 2020 10:42 AM - BoerumHillScott
Sorry for the inconvenience.


Special characters should be fixed
December 19, 2020 11:04 PM - BoerumHillScott


Fixed Hangman special charcter bug
December 19, 2020 5:18 PM - BoerumHillScott


Fixed Hangman creating new game error
December 17, 2020 8:54 PM - BoerumHillScott


Site Move
August 4, 2019 1:06 PM - BoerumHillScott


Another crash
March 31, 2019 10:53 AM - BoerumHillScott


Server crash
March 25, 2019 1:44 PM - BoerumHillScott
Our cheap hosting provider over-subscribed their equipment, and our disk that had 50% free went to 0% free and crashed the server.

Along with 2 outages in the last two months, I guess it's time to look for another provider.

Remider: for any site issues, concerns, or complaints, please post them here so I can be sure to see them.

-Scott


Upcoming site move and security change
January 4, 2019 11:59 AM - BoerumHillScott
Over the last year, the site disk storage requirements have been getting closer to the limits of our current hosting provider. We have had the current provider for over three years, so it was time to evaluate competitors anyway. I ended up findng one that offers a lot more storage at a much lower price along with better performance, so it’s moving time.

With moving, I did some behind the scenes clean up, and decided to make one change: the new server will only support HTTPS, encrypting all traffic.
All existing links will still work, but will automatically redirect you from http to https.
The only difference you should notice besides an extra “s” in URLs is that the site will now be considered secure by your browser and you will not get annoying messages warning you to not enter your password on newer browsers.

I will most likely make the move this evening (Friday, January 4), meaning a few hours of downtime.


Site Finances: July 2015 - January 2019
January 4, 2019 11:59 AM - BoerumHillScott
So I have not been very diligent about documenting the site finances, but then again we no longer have expense or donations as large as the first few years.

Moving forward with a new hosting provider, the ongoing costs will be lower:
$35/year for hosting
$26/year for domain registration (estimate, pre-paid through 2021)
$12/year for backup storage (approximate)
==
$73/year total

Site Finances: July 2015 - January2019

33.34 = Prior Balance

Income:
19.12 9/22/16 Paypal donation
48.25 7/14/17 Paypal donation
48.25 7/14/17 Paypal donation
40.48 7/14/17 Paypal donation
19.12 7/14/17 Paypal donation
48.25 2/13/18 Paypal donation
96.80 1/4/19 Paypal donation
38.54 1/4/19 Paypal donation
96.80 1/4/19 Paypal donation
96.80 1/4/19 Paypal donation
96.80 1/4/19 Paypal donation
==
649.21 Total Income

Expenses:
420.00 OpenVirtuals Virtual Private Server 7/18/2015 -“ 1/15/2019 (42 months x $10)
35.00 HostedSimply Virtual Private Server 11/7/2018 - 11/6/2019
65.05 Domain Name Registration : lifeinbkln.com 7/28/2016 - 7/27/2021
65.05 Domain Name Registration : lifeinbklyn.com 9/1/2016 - 8/30/2021
6.00 Backup storage (approximate) 7/1/2018 - 12/31/2018
==
585.10 Total Expenses

97.45 Balance

Note: Paypal amounts are after they take their cut of a few percent.


Minor update in process
November 7, 2018 11:48 AM - BoerumHillScott


Site hosting, technology, and security
July 19, 2017 9:00 AM - BoerumHillScott
In response to a question last night:

This site is hosted on a Virtual Private Server from OpenVirtuals, using their SSD-Combo Professional plan.
I am the only one who has access to the OpenVirtuals account.

The virtual server runs Debian Linux (currently Debian 8 - Jessie).
I am the only one who can log into the server.
The virtual server is only used for lifeinbklyn.

The http server is Apache2, and the database server is MySQL.

Backups are taken nightly, stored on Amazon Web Services S3, and can only be accessed by me.